10+ Best SEO Audit Tools For Content & Technical Audits

When errors are identified, it's easy to drop down and see the source of the error, as well as the URLs impacted and the changes that you need to make in order to remove that error.

SEO audit reports can be exported to PDF, integrated with Google Data Studio, or exported to Excel. It's also possible to schedule SEO audits using Semrush so that you can track progress over time (and get alerted to new errors by email).

Semrush offers SEO auditing on all of its paid plans. The Pro plan costs $119.95 per/mo and allows you to audit 100,000 pages per month, or 20,000 pages per project, per/mo.

We like Semrush as a general SEO tool that can be used for site auditing, as well as keyword research, backlink monitoring, and rank tracking.

Features we like

• Integrations - once your SEO audit is complete, work with the data anywhere
• Schedule SEO audits - automate your SEO audit process with scheduled audits and automated alerts
• Health score - understand the context of your SEO audit with an easy-to-digest website health score

Semrush pricing

Semrush offers 3 different paid pricing plans for businesses of all sizes. Each plan provides access to Semrush's SEO audit tool with varying crawl credit limits.

• Pro - $119.95 per/mo, optimize 5 projects, crawl 100,000 pages per/mo
• Guru - $229.95 per/mo, optimize 15 projects, crawl 300,000 pages per/mo
• Business - $449.95 per/mo, optimize 40 projects, crawl 1,000,000 pages per/mo

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a leading all-in-one SEO tool and a more affordable option for smaller businesses looking for an alternative to Semrush.

Like Semrush, SE Ranking is used by over 600,000 digital marketers globally to optimize SEO performance, providing access to keyword research tools, backlink monitoring, rank tracking, and more.

SE Ranking's SEO site audit tool works in a similar way to Semrush, running analysis on your web pages in minutes.

Once complete, SE Ranking provides a website health score, alongside a detailed breakdown of the web pages crawled, URLs found, and top issues spotted broken down by category (and split between notices, errors, and warnings).

One additional benefit to using SE Ranking is they also report on SEO performance in relation to Google's Core Web Vitals guidance, showing which URLs are considered, fast, in need of improvement, and slow.

Here's a snapshot of that dashboard.

Like Semrush, you can schedule regular SEO audits using SE Ranking and benchmark changes in health scores over time.

It's also possible to get the results emailed to you on a regular basis to ensure that you are positively impacting your health score and not generating new SEO errors.

Website SEO auditing is available on all paid SE Ranking plans, with the Essential plan costing just $23.40 per/mo. The Essential plan allows you to audit up to 40,000 pages.

We rank SE Ranking as one of our best SEO reporting tools for agencies and in-house teams.

Features we like

• Google Core Web Vitals scoring - check each URLs performance against Core Web Vitals
• Trust score - receive a trust score within your audit based on backlink performance
• Affordability - SE Ranking is the cheapest alternative to Semrush and AHREFs and is used by 600,000+ digital marketers globally (including big brands)

SE Ranking pricing

SE Ranking offers 3 paid plans, each of which offers access to its website audit feature.

• Essential - $23.40 per/mo, optimize 10 projects, crawl 40,000 pages per/mo
• Pro - $53.40 per/mo, unlimited projects, crawl 250,000 pages per/mo
• Business - $113.40 per/mo, unlimited projects, crawl 700,000 pages per/mo

AHREFs

AHREFs is another all-in-one SEO tool and one of Semrush's biggest competitors.

AHREFs are used by millions of marketers, including SEO experts from leading brands like Uber, and Samsung.

The AHREFs website crawler is one of the most active on the internet, crawling over 5 million URLs every minute.

The AHREFs site audit tool works very well for businesses of all sizes, running one-time or scheduled audits on your entire sitemap in short periods of time.

Once complete, you are provided with a website health score, and an easy-to-read dashboard that provides an overview of SEO on-page factors, including, crawled URL distribution, link status of crawled links, issue distribution (split by errors, issues, and notices), as well as a breakdown of the top errors and issues that you need to fix immediately.

Here is a snapshot of a recent website audit that we ran on Visualize Value using AHREFs.

And here is the output of our errors and issues report.

As you can see, AHREFs make it easy to drill down and analyze each SEO issue in detail, as well as focus on the URLs that need specific attention.

On top of this, you can isolate specific SEO audit reports like indexability, site links, redirects, content, performance, localization, and more if you want to drill down further.

If you are looking for an excellent all-in-one SEO tool that takes care of your SEO site auditing, keyword research, backlink monitoring, and other SEO tasks in one place - AHREFs is a great perfect solution.

Features we like

• Website health score - regardless of your SEO errors and issues, get a clear score that makes sense
• Errors and issues report - zone in quickly on the SEO issues you need to fix
• SEO audit scheduling - schedule SEO audits periodically and get alerted to changes and new errors via email

AHREFs pricing

AHREFs offers 4 different pricing plans, all of which offer the AHREFs SEO site audit tooling as standard. However, you will need to opt for the plan with enough crawl credit for your use case.

• Lite - $99 per/mo, optimize 5 projects, 100,000 crawl credit
• Standard - $199 per/mo, optimize 20 projects, 500,00 crawl credit
• Advanced - $399 per/mo, optimize 50 projects, 1,500,00 crawl credit
• Enterprise - $999 per/mo, optimize 100 projects, 5,000,00 crawl credit

GTMetrix

 

GTMetrix is a dedicated SEO audit tool that tests user experience against Google's guidelines.

It's been used to test nearly a billion domains by SEO experts at some of the biggest brands and agencies in the world, including GoDaddy, Cisco, and Microsoft.

Primarily GTMetrix tests website performance for page speed, performance vs Google Core Web Vitals guidelines (LCP, CLC, and TBT) and provides detailed reporting and testing functionality - allowing you to test by device and browser, as well as providing access to visual representations of how your website loads.

GTMetrix makes it easy to track performance over time and notifies you of performance issues with the ability to run automated reports.

Pricing starts at $10.76 per/mo to access GTMetrix paid tools, but they also offer a free SEO audit tool that allows you to monitor 1 page (e.g. your homepage) with 30 on-demand tests per/mo.

There are 6 paid plans available for individuals and businesses looking to test at scale, which range between $10-450+ per month.

Features we like

• Actionable results - GTMetrix tells you what you need to fix and how to fix it
• Track performance enhancements - measure the impact of your optimization work
• Geo-location testing - test via 97 different servers in 22 different countries to analyze performance at the country level

GTMetrix pricing

GTMetrix offers a free SEO audit tool that allows you to track your 1 page and run 30 tests per/mo. There are also Individual and Business plans available for those looking for scale.

Individual

• Solo - $10.67 per/mo, 3 pages, 175 on-demand weekly tests
• Starter - $21.25 per/mo, 6 pages, 200 on-demand weekly tests
• Growth - $42.50 per/mo, 12 pages, 300 on-demand weekly tests

Business

• Champion - $63.75 per/mo, 15 pages, 500 on-demand weekly tests
• Team - $170 per/mo, 30 pages, 1,000 on-demand weekly tests
• Enterprise - $450 per/mo, 60 pages, 2,000 on-demand weekly tests
• Custom - reach out to the GTMetrix sales team

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a must-have SEO tool for any SEO expert or website owner.

Once you verify your website, you can use Google Search Console to track the visibility of your project in Google by monitoring impressions, clicks, click-through rates, and average ranking position in one easy-to-digest report.

Here is a snapshot of some recent Visualize Value impression data.

On top of this, you can check the status of any URL on your website to ensure that it is being indexed and that there are no obvious errors that you should be aware of.

When it comes to auditing your website, Google Search Console is not a traditional SEO audit tool, instead, it helps alert you to any webpages that are experiencing indexing errors, or that are performing poorly from a user experience perspective.

It's possible to generate reports to understand what pages and video content Google is currently indexing, as well as how URLs are performing vs important guidelines like Core Web Vitals metrics, mobile usability, and to monitor how many impressions URLs with 'good' page experience are generating across mobile and desktop.

Here's Visualize Value's breakdown for 'good' URL desktop coverage.

Alongside these important SEO audit features, Google Search Console is also where you submit your sitemap to Google, and where you can ask Google to index specific pages as and when they launch.

Features we like

• Search results - audit your SEO performance by analyzing ranking data
• URL inspection - check indexing status by URL and ask Google to index new pages
• Core Web Vitals scoring - spot which domains are not adhering to Web Vitals guidance

Google Search Console pricing

Google Search Console is a free SEO audit tool used by millions of marketers globally. All you need to do is run through the verification steps to set up access.

SurferSEO

Unlike the other SEO audit tools we've covered so far, SurferSEO is a tool for auditing your SEO content.

SurferSEO is used by thousands of global brands for content optimization, offering tools for keyword research, content planning, content editing, and content auditing.

Here at Visualize Value we use SurferSEO to optimize (and produce) our blog content at scale, auditing our content quality in real time so that we can understand how well we are optimizing our content to rank in search engines.

See below screenshot for a live look at this post being produced within SurferSEO.

If you are looking for an SEO audit tool to audit your content, or to analyze the SERP landscape, then SurferSEO is a great option.

SurferSEO has a dedicated tool for auditing content quality.

To get started, all you have to do is enter the page you are wishing to audit, and the keywords you are trying to target, and SurferSEO will provide you with a detailed set of performance benchmarks that you can analyze and take action from.

Here's a snapshot of one of our pages in the SurferSEO audit tool.

From a content quality perspective, we are benchmarking well but are being outscored by some of our competitors who are currently outranking us.

Here's a snapshot of the terms that SurferSEO thinks we should introduce into our content to improve content quality.

Surfer also provides tonnes of metrics like missing backlinks, content structure (word count, number of images, number of paragraphs, etc), page title and meta description length, as well as page load targets.

In a separate section of the SurferSEO audit tool, SERP Analyzer, you can even audit the SERP itself to understand how to structure your content in detail.

SurferSEO provides graphical charts that show you the average number per metric relative to ranking performance. Here we are looking at the average word count on-page, split by those ranking on page 1, page 2, page 3 (and so on) of Google.

If you are looking for a tool to create optimized copy for organic search, and to audit existing content vs your key competitors at the keyword level, then SurferSEO is also a great option.

Surfer also offers a free SEO audit tool called Grow Flow which connects with your Google Search Console to provide you with actionable advice on new optimization opportunities every week.

Check out this list of helpful optimizations that Grow Flow is suggesting for Visualize Value.

Pricing for SurferSEO paid plans starts at $49 per/mo providing access to Surfer's SERP analyzer, content editor, content audit tool, and other tools. There are also Pro and Business plans for further scale.

Want to get started for free? Check out Surfer's free SEO tool, Grow Flow.

Features we like

• Content Editor - edit and audit your content in real-time as it's produced, check content score
• Content Audit - analyze existing content quality and benchmark vs your competitors
• SERP Analyzer - check the average metrics of those already ranking for keywords you care about

SurferSEO pricing

SurferSEO offers a free SEO tool called Grow Flow that connects to your Google Search Console. The content audit features start at $49 per month.

• Free - unlimited access to Grow Flow
• Basic - $49 per month - write and optimize 10 articles + audit 20 existing pages per month
• Pro - $99 per month - write and optimize 30 articles + audit 60 existing pages per month
• Business - $199 per month - write and optimize 70 articles + audit 140 existing pages per month

OnCrawl

OnCrawl is a leading dedicated enterprise SEO audit tool.

It's used by big brands like Shopify, Rakuten, and Forbes (alongside 1,000+ others) to run SEO audits on large sites in bulk, in order to uncover any SEO issues that are holding back website rankings in search engines.

OnCrawl's main SEO audit tool is their website crawler, which aims to crawl your site in the same way that Google would do so, returning insight on your performance.

This is a great way to analyze your internal linking structure, audit page speed, page experience, and duplicate content, and for agencies and internal SEO teams, build reports to track progress, as well as gain stakeholder buy-in on SEO projects.

OnCrawl also features a log analyzer which allows you to optimize how your website is audited by Google, in order to minimize crawl budget waste.

On top of this, OnCrawl also shows you exactly how Google and other major search engines crawl and index your site so that you can make the relevant performance adjustments, and alerts you to orphan content that is not currently linked to but driving organic search clicks.

If you are looking for an enterprise grade SEO audit tool, then OnCrawl is an excellent option, providing you with insight and actionable guidance at scale.

Despite the 'enterprise' nametag, pricing plans start at just $69 per/mo which allows you to measure performance for 1 domain, accessing 100,000 URL crawls per/mo.

For larger sites, there are paid plans that allow you to scale that up significantly.

Features we like

• OnCrawl Insights - understand how your site is currently using your Google crawl budget
• Website crawler - check performance against 600+ major SEO performance indicators
• Reporting - share feedback with internal teams and clients to show opportunity and impact

OnCrawl pricing

OnCrawl offers 3 pricing plans for those looking to track single projects and additional projects from one Oncrawl account.

If you're just getting started, the Explorer plan allows you to crawl up to 100,000 URLs on 1 domain per month.

• Explorer - $69 per/mo, 1 project, 100,000 URLs per month
• Business - $249 per/mo, 2 projects, 500,000 URLs per month
• Beyond - custom

Google PageSpeed Insights

Google PageSpeed Insights is another valuable free SEO audit tool offered by Google that allows you to measure your site performance, page speed, and Web Vitals scores at URL level.

It's possible to check any URL online, meaning you can test any website, as well as your competitions domains for benchmarking purposes.

PageSpeed Insights allows you to test your URLs across desktop and mobile, and gives you detailed scores on your Largest Contextual Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), as well as other notable metrics like FCP, INP, and TTFB.

Here is the desktop output from a Visualise Value URL we've just run.

First PageSpeed Insights shows you your performance vs key indicators, it then provides you with a detailed overall performance score based your website performance, accessibility, SEO, and adherence to best practices.

Check out this breakdown.

If you are looking to improve your scores, Google also tells you exactly where to focus both for mobile and desktop.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a free SEO audit tool and can be accessed via Google's Developer portal.

Features we like

• Actionable results - understand what is holding back website performance and where to focus
• Competitor benchmarking - check which of your competitors is winning organic traffic and compare site performance
• Mobile and desktop testing - test cross-devices to see whether you are optimizing correctly on mobile and desktop

Google PageSpeed Insights pricing

• Google PageSpeed Insights is a free site audit tool

Google Structured Data Tool

Google also offers a free to use SEO tool that allows you to audit and test that your structured data is correctly validated.

Firstly you can use the tool to asses whether you website is supporting rich snippets, and secondly you can validate that your schema markup is correctly implemented.

Here you see the output from our schema markup test for one of the URLs on our blog.

If you are using structured data to rank for SERP features, then it's worth using the Google structured data testing tool to ensure that Google is capturing your structured data correctly.

Why invest in technical SEO audit tools?

Investing in SEO audit tools to run technical SEO audits is a must for any business that is serious about improving search engine rankings.

The best SEO audit tools help you to uncover SEO issues that are holding back your website search rankings, and alert you periodically to site issues like broken links and weak content quality that will result in poor user experience.

Making the decision to invest in an SEO audit tool helps eliminate blind spots in your digital marketing strategy and ensures that your website is built with solid foundations - resulting in enhanced SEO performance and better organic keyword rankings.

Ultimately, if your on-page, technical SEO is weak then your keyword research, content quality, and incoming and outgoing links will not aid your SEO performance as you'd expect.

Looking for specifics?

Here is a breakdown of the main features that brands focus on when purchasing SEO audit tools.

• Fix broken links - find broken links and fix them at source using website crawlers that periodically analyze every internal and external link across your website
  
  
• Optimize page title tags and meta descriptions - audit your page titles and meta descriptions easily by seeing where you have thin content, under-optimized work counts, and weak copy
  
  
• Generate XML sitemaps - it's worth updating your sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console regularly, SEO audit tools make it easy to generate sitemaps
  
  
• Automation - if you are launching a lot of new pages, alongside new content, it's worth running automated SEO audits to make sure that you are optimizing and not missing technical SEO issues
  
  
• Visualize site architecture - the best SEO audit tools feature site architecture visualization technology that allows you to see how your website is linked together. Topic clusters should be structured in the right way to drive keyword rankings - SEO audit tools help you spot gaps
  
  
• Eliminate duplicate content - thin content and duplicate content needs to be optimized and removed from your website to help your SEO performance. SEO audit tools help you spot duplicate content and setup the correct canonicalization
  
  
• Audit structured data - free SEO audit tools offered by Google allow you to check whether your structured data (optimized for search snippets) is rendering correctly. Paid SEO audit tools also offer the same functionality, and allow you to spot areas you are not optimizing
  
  
• Integrations - the best SEO audit tools also allow you to connect to Google Search Console and Google Analytics so that you can monitor SEO optimization opportunities within the context of real-time, live ranking data. Focus on the pages and areas of the site that are most important for your business
  
  
• Page loading speed - it's important to comply with Google's core web vitals tests, and SEO audit tools can analyze page speed to ensure that you are offering visitors an optimized user experience
  
  
• Competitor research - the best thing about SEO audit tools is that you can audit your competitor's websites to see where they are lacking from a technical SEO perspective. It's worth also analyzing whether your competitors are passing core web vitals tests via Google PageSpeed Insights

How to invest in the best website audit tools for SEO?

If you are ready to invest in an SEO audit tool to help you monitor your SEO performance then check out these qualifying questions before taking the plunge.

Here at Visualize Value we use Screaming Frog as our dedicated SEO audit tool but also run periodic SEO audits via Semrush and AHREFs (which work great) - these all-in-one SEO tools are perfect solutions if you want to manage all of your SEO activities under one roof.

• Are you looking for an all-in-one SEO audit tool or a dedicated SEO audit tools?
• Are you auditing content quality or carrying out technical SEO?
• Do you want to rely on free SEO audit tools or do you have budget for paid tools?
• Will you run SEO audits manually or do you want to use an automated website crawler?

These questions will help you work out what SEO tools you need to use in order to operate as a best-in-class SEO outfit.

All-in-one SEO tools like Semrush, AHREFs, and SE Rankings give you everything you need to alert you to major SEO technical issues on-site.

If you want to access dedicated SEO audit tools to get into the weeds of how your website is structured, technical SEO tools like Screaming Frog and OnCrawl allow you to crawl big sites and audit SEO issues in bulk without breaking the bank.

Sign up for the best SEO audit tools for your business

Click through and purchase the SEO audit tools that are right for your use case. Check out paid tools like Screaming Frog, Semrush, and AHREFs.

For content audits and optimizing content quality, opt for SurferSEO, and if you want to access free SEO audit tools Google offers some excellent solutions in the form of Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and their structured data testing tool.

Related reviews of other SEO tools and courses

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• Surfer SEO Review
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• Compound Content - 5-Star SEO course